Bulk message identification

ABSTRACT

Distinctively treating digital communications sent by bulk message senders includes providing a set of bulk sender behavior policies and monitoring compliance by a bulk message sender with the set of policies. Based on compliance by the bulk message sender with the set of policies, digital communications sent by the bulk message sender are distinctively treated.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/330,285, filed Dec. 30, 2002, which claims the benefit of U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/416,295, filed on Oct. 7,2002, each of which is incorporated by reference in this application inits entirety for all purposes.

This application references U.S. application Ser. No. 10/306,880 filedNov. 27, 2002 and titled IDENTIFICATION AND FILTRATION OF DIGITALCOMMUNICATIONS, which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety for all purposes.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This document relates to digital communications systems, and moreparticularly to digital communications systems used to send messages inbulk.

BACKGROUND

Network systems enable communication of messages among computer systems.For example, an electronic mail system (or a compatible system) enablesthe communication of e-mail messages between computers attached to anetwork. Some messages transferred over the system may not be desired bytheir recipient. Such messages typically are referred to as spam. Spammessages may crowd the mailbox of a recipient to such an extent thatdesirable messages may go unnoticed and unread by the recipient. Spamfiltering applications attempt to address this problem by identifyingand filtering out spam prior to message storage. Such applications,however, frequently filter out messages desired by the recipient alongwith the spam.

SUMMARY

In one general aspect, distinctively treating digital communicationssent by bulk message senders includes providing a set of bulk senderbehavior policies and monitoring compliance by a bulk message senderwith the set of policies. Based on compliance by the bulk message senderwith the set of policies, digital communications sent by the bulkmessage sender are distinctively treated.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. Forexample, the digital communications may be e-mails or instant messages.Distinctive treatment of the digital communications may include treatingthe digital communications sent by the bulk message sender distinctlyfrom digital communications sent by other senders. Distinctive treatmentalso may include preferential treatment and may include allowing thedigital communications to bypass filtering operations, such as spamfiltering.

Distinctive treatment of the digital communications may includegraphically distinguishing the digital communications from other digitalcommunications in a user interface provided at a recipient system.Graphically distinguishing the digital communications may includeplacing an icon next to summary or title information for the digitalcommunications displayed in the user interface. Graphicallydistinguishing the digital communications also may include displayingthe text of the digital communications in a distinct color in the userinterface.

Distinctive treatment of the digital communications may include enablinga recipient to separate the digital communications from other digitalcommunications displayed in a user interface. Distinctive treatment ofthe digital communications also may include distinctively treating thedigital communications based on a sender compliance data recordcorresponding to the bulk message sender.

Distinctive treatment of the digital communications may includeproviding different levels of distinctive treatment to digitalcommunications sent by different bulk message senders based on differentlevels of compliance by those different bulk message senders. Thedifferent levels of treatment may include a low preferential treatmentlevel and a high preferential treatment level. The low preferentialtreatment level may include allowing the digital communications tobypass filtering operations. The high preferential treatment level mayinclude allowing the digital communications to bypass filteringoperations and graphically distinguishing the digital communicationsfrom other received digital communications in a user interface providedat a recipient system.

The set of bulk sender behavior policies may include policies relatingto a format of the digital communications and policies relating to amethod of sending the digital communications. The bulk sender behaviorpolicies may include a requirement that the bulk message sender not hideor forge sender-related information, provide in the digitalcommunications non-Internet contact information, provide in the digitalcommunications valid instructions on how a recipient may prevent futuredigital communications from being sent to the recipient by the bulkmessage sender, not send digital communications from a site with adynamically assigned Internet Protocol address, not send more than apredetermined amount of digital communications that are returned to thebulk message sender as undeliverable over a predetermined time interval,accept more than a predetermined amount of digital communications thatare returned to the bulk message sender as undeliverable over apredetermined time interval, provide information in the digitalcommunications relating to their acquisition of an address of theintended recipient, send digital communications that are compliant withrequest for comments standards, and send the digital communicationsusing relays that are closed to third party relaying.

When the digital communications comprise e-mails, the set of bulk senderbehavior policies also may include a requirement that the bulk messagesender send the digital communications using relays that have nothardcoded the mail exchange records of a mail system configured toreceive the e-mails. The bulk sender behavior policies may furtherinclude a requirement that the bulk message sender not send futuree-mails to an e-mail address of a recipient if an e-mail sent to thee-mail address is designated as undeliverable due to a permanentdelivery failure.

Monitoring compliance by a bulk message sender with the set of policiesmay include tracking pattern information related to communications sentby the bulk message sender. The pattern information may includeinformation related to the number of digital communications deliveredsuccessfully to the recipients, the number of digital communicationsdesignated as undeliverable and returned to the bulk message sender, andrecipient feedback regarding the digital communications received fromthe bulk message sender. Monitoring compliance also may includegenerating a report that describes compliance of the bulk message senderwith the policies over a predetermined time interval, and sending thereport to the bulk message sender.

Monitoring compliance with the set of policies also may include turningon or off one or more compliance flags in a sender compliance datarecord corresponding to the bulk message sender. Distinctive treatmentof the digital communications sent by the bulk message sender may bebased on the one or more compliance flags in the sender compliance datarecord.

When the digital communications comprise e-mails, monitoring compliancemay further include calculating a total number of e-mails sent by thebulk message sender over a predetermined time interval, calculating atotal number of e-mails bounced back to the bulk message sender, andcalculating a total number of bounced e-mails successfully received bythe bulk message sender.

In another general aspect, a communications system that distinctivelytreats digital communications sent by a bulk message sender includes adata store and a message processing system. The data store stores sendercompliance data records that indicate bulk message sender compliancewith a set of bulk sender behavior policies. The message processingsystem receives a digital communication from a bulk message sender anddistinctively treats the digital communication based on at least one ofthe sender compliance data records that corresponds to the bulk messagesender. The message processing system enables access to the digitalcommunication by a designated recipient in accordance with thedistinctive treatment given to the digital communication.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. Forexample, the communications system may include a recipient system thatdistinctively treats the digital communications based on the sendercompliance data record corresponding to the bulk message sender. Themessage processing system may include a compliance monitoring computerthat generates a report that describes compliance of the bulk messagesender with the policies over a predetermined time interval. Thecompliance monitoring computer may send the report to the bulk messagesender.

The message processing system may include a host mail system thatincludes a message identification and filtration system that receivesand identifies the digital communications, and performs filteringoperations in accordance with the distinctive treatment given to thedigital communications. The host mail system may include a mailboxsystem that receives the digital communications from the messageidentification and filtration system and enables access to the digitalcommunications by a designated recipient in accordance with thedistinctive treatment given to the digital communications. The mailboxsystem also may distinctively treat the digital communications based onthe sender compliance data record corresponding to the bulk messagesender.

In another general aspect, approving a bulk message sender fordistinctive treatment includes obtaining an agreement from the bulkmessage sender to comply with a set of bulk sender behavior policies.The bulk message sending system used by the bulk message sender to senddigital communications is tested for compliance with the policies. Abulk message sender is approved for distinctive treatment based on theresults of the testing.

In another general aspect, a user interface includes a first interfaceelement that enables perception of at least one received digital file.The user interface also includes a second interface element thatnotifies a recipient of a digital communication that a sender of thedigital communication is a bulk message sender complying with a set ofbulk sender behavior policies.

Implementations may include one or more of the following features. Forexample, the second interface element may comprise a graphical elementthat distinguishes the digital communication from other digitalcommunications. The graphical element may be an icon placed next tosummary or title information of received digital communicationsdisplayed in the first interface element.

The details of one or more implementations are set forth in theaccompanying drawings and the description below. Other features will beapparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a communications system capableof distinctively treating digital communications sent by bulk messagesenders.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary process for approving abulk message sender for preferential treatment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary process used by thecommunications system of FIG. 1 to distinctively treat digitalcommunications sent by a bulk message sender complying with bulk senderbehavior policies.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an e-mail system capable ofpreferentially treating e-mails sent by bulk mail senders.

FIGS. 5A and 5B are a flowchart illustrating an exemplary process forapproving a bulk mail sender for preferential treatment.

FIG. 6 is an exemplary user interface.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary process used by thee-mail system of FIG. 4 to preferentially treat an e-mail sent by a bulkmail sender complying with bulk mail policies.

Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Bulk message senders typically send a large number of digitalcommunications to a large number of recipients. The digitalcommunications typically are digital files that may include, forexample, electronic mail (e-mail), instant messages (IM's), or othermessages or files including audio data, video data, general binary data,or text data (e.g., encoded in American Standard Code for InformationInterchange (ASCII) format). The digital communications sent by bulkmessage senders may include advertisements of products, services,offers, or opportunities, or other marketing/promotional materials. Thenumber of digital communications sent by a bulk message sender maysubstantially exceed the number of digital communications that the bulkmessage sender receives in response from the digital communicationdestinations (e.g., approximately one response may be received per onehundred digital communications sent).

In an e-mail context, bulk message senders may be referred to as bulkmail senders and may be distinguished from spammers in several respects.For one, bulk mail senders typically are reputable marketers thatprovide useful and desired e-mails to targeted recipients, which e-mailstend not to be pornographic or sexually explicit. Spammers, on the otherhand, typically employ dishonest techniques to send the electronicequivalent of junk mail to vast numbers of recipients. Unfortunately forbulk mail senders, e-mails sent by bulk mail senders frequently areconfused with spam e-mails and are either blocked by spam filters orlost among the multitudes of spam e-mails that a recipient may receive.

In one general implementation, a communications system distinctivelytreats digital communications sent by bulk message senders that complywith bulk sender behavior policies. Distinctively treating digitalcommunications typically involves treating the digital communicationsreceived from the bulk message sender distinctly from digitalcommunications received from other senders. In some implementations,distinctively treating the digital communications involvespreferentially treating the digital communications (i.e., treating thedigital communications in a way that benefits the bulk message sender).The communications system may be used to monitor bulk message sendercompliance with bulk sender behavior policies and to distinguish ordistinctively treat digital communications sent by bulk message sendersthat behave in accordance with the bulk sender behavior policies.

In general, bulk sender behavior policies are policies that a bulkmessage sender may follow to obtain the status of a reputable andtrusted marketer or entity. For example, in an e-mail-orientedimplementation, the bulk mail sender may comply with bulk mail policies(i.e., bulk sender behavior policies directed to e-mail) todifferentiate itself from a spammer (i.e., a sender of electronic junkmail). Bulk sender behavior policies typically include policies relatingto the format of the digital communications (i.e., the presentation andcontents of the communication) and/or the method of sending the digitalcommunications (e.g., whether the communication was sent anonymously orwhether the communication was sent from a secure system).

In one specific implementation, the communications system is an e-mailsystem that preferentially treats e-mails sent from a bulk mail senderby allowing the e-mails to bypass spam filtering and by using an icon tovisually distinguish the e-mails from spam e-mails displayed to arecipient. In the e-mail system, a bulk mail sender system sends ane-mail to one or more recipient systems through a network and a hostmail system. The host mail system includes a data store containing asender compliance data record for each identified bulk mail sender. Thesender compliance data record includes a compliance flag that is turnedON if the bulk mail sender agrees to and complies with a set of bulkmail policies designed to differentiate bulk mail senders from spammers.The host mail system allows the e-mail sent by the bulk mail sender tobypass some or all of the spam filtering of the host mail system if thecompliance flag of the sender compliance data record associated with thebulk mail sender is turned ON. The host mail system also turns ON a flagbit in the header section of the e-mail if the compliance flag of thesender compliance data record is turned ON. When the recipient systemreceives the e-mail, the recipient system examines the flag bit, and, ifthe flag bit is turned ON, the recipient system displays an “approvedbulk mail sender” icon next to the displayed header information of thee-mail. The icon allows the recipient of the e-mail to visuallydistinguish between the e-mail sent by the bulk mail sender and spame-mails.

The host mail system also includes a compliance monitoring computer thatmonitors whether each identified bulk mail sender is complying with thebulk mail policies. The compliance monitoring computer periodicallygenerates sender compliance reports that indicate sender compliancestatus, and sends the reports automatically to bulk mail senders usinge-mail. The compliance monitoring computer also generates and modifiessender compliance data records based on the compliance of each bulk mailsender.

In another specific implementation, the e-mail system provides twolevels of preferential treatment based on the extent of compliance ofthe bulk mail sender to bulk mail policies. A bulk mail sender isinitially placed on a “white list” and receives a lower level ofpreferential treatment (e.g., e-mails sent by the bulk mail senderbypass all spam filters). If the bulk mail sender complies with the bulkmail policies for an extended period of time, the bulk mail sender isplaced on an “approved bulk mail sender” list and receives a higherlevel of preferential treatment (e.g., e-mails sent by the approved bulkmail sender bypass all spam filters and are visually distinguished fromother e-mails when depicted in a user interface at a recipient system).The communications system keeps track of the two levels of preferentialtreatment by using two compliance flags in each sender compliance datarecord.

In other implementations, these techniques are applied to communicationsystems other than e-mail. For instance, policies may be established forinstant messaging communication that will enable differentiation betweenbulk/legitimate instant messaging sources/senders and spam/illegitimatesources/senders. The policies used to regulate instant messages may bebased on instant messaging communications, or they may be based onpolicies for an e-mail system such that instant message sources/sendersare authenticated based on their e-mail compliance with bulk e-mailpolicies, or some combination of compliance with policies for variouscommunication platforms.

Referring to FIG. 1, a communications system 100 capable ofdistinctively treating digital communications sent by bulk messagesenders includes a bulk message sender system 110 that is able to send adigital communication to one or more recipient systems 120 through anetwork 130 and a message processing system 140. The digitalcommunications sent by a bulk message sender may be awarded distinctivetreatment if the bulk message sender complies with specified bulk senderbehavior policies.

The bulk message sender system 110 is configured to send a digitalcommunication to one or more recipient systems 120 through the messageprocessing system 140. The bulk message sender system 110 may include adevice 112 capable of executing instructions under the command of acontroller 114. The device 112 may be a general purpose computer such asa workstation or personal computer. The controller 114 commands anddirects communications between the device 112 of the system 110 and themessage processing system 140. The controller 114 may be a softwareapplication that enables digital communications to be sent to themessage processing system 140 using a file transfer protocol such as,for example, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). The device 112 may beconnected to the controller 114 by a wired or wireless data pathway 116capable of delivering data.

The recipient system 120 is configured to receive a digitalcommunication from the bulk message sender system 110 by accessing themessage processing system 140 through the network 130. The recipientsystem 120 typically includes a device 122 capable of executinginstructions under the command of a controller 124. The device 122 maybe a general purpose computer such as a workstation or personalcomputer. The controller 124 may command and direct communicationsbetween the device 122 of the recipient system 120 and the messageprocessing system 140. The controller 124 may be a digitalcommunications interface application that enables receipt of digitalcommunications from the message processing system 140 using a filetransfer protocol. In an e-mail-oriented implementation, the digitalcommunications interface application may be an e-mail application andthe file transfer protocol may be, for example, Post Office Protocol(POP) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). The device 122 may beconnected to the controller 124 by a wired or wireless data pathway 126capable of delivering data. In one implementation, the recipient system120 also may send digital communications to the message processingsystem 140.

The recipient system 120 may distinguish or distinctively treat digitalcommunications sent by bulk message senders that comply with bulk senderbehavior policies. Recipient system 120 may alter the manner in whichthe digital communications are presented to the recipient and/or themanner in which the digital communications are processed by the digitalcommunications interface application based on the compliance by thesender. In one particular example, the digital communications interfaceapplication may include a user interface that uses a graphical elementor icon to denote digital communications that are received from bulkmessage senders that comply with bulk sender behavior policies. Inanother example, the digital communications interface application mayuse a different color font or place the digital communications in aseparate folder or storage location to designate digital communicationsreceived from bulk message senders that comply with bulk sender behaviorpolicies (e.g., instant messages from bulk message senders in compliancewith the policies may be displayed in blue, and e-mails from bulk mailsenders in compliance with the policies may be placed in a “bulk mail”folder). In an e-mail-oriented implementation, the e-mail applicationmay designate an e-mail from a bulk mail sender complying with bulk mailpolicies by placing an icon next to the e-mail entry in a list ofe-mails received by the recipient. The e-mail application also may allowthe e-mail from the bulk mail sender to bypass some or all spamfiltering normally provided by the e-mail application. Additionally oralternatively, e-mails from bulk mail senders that comply with bulk mailpolicies may be denoted by accompanying the receipt of the e-mails witha distinct audible cue, and/or by presenting bulk e-mail collectively toa recipient.

The network 130 is configured to enable direct or indirectcommunications between the bulk sender system 110, the recipient systems120, and the message processing system 140. Examples of a network 130include the Internet, the World Wide Web, Wide Area Networks (WANs),Local Area Networks (LANs), analog or digital wired and wirelesstelephone networks (e.g., Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN),Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and Digital Subscriber Line(xDSL)), radio, television, cable, satellite, and/or any other deliveryor tunneling mechanism for carrying data.

The message processing system 140 may include one or more servers,processors, or intelligent devices configured to receive digitalcommunications from the bulk message sender system 110 and process thedigital communications distinctly based on compliance of the bulkmessage sender with bulk sender behavior policies. The messageprocessing system 140 typically is configured to identify the bulkmessage sender that sent a digital communication and to determine theextent of compliance of the bulk message sender with bulk senderbehavior policies (e.g., whether the sender agreed to observe thepolicies and/or whether the sender actually has observed the policies).Based on the extent of compliance, the message processing system 140 mayhandle the digital communications sent from the bulk message senderdistinctly by, for example, modifying the digital communications todistinguish them from other digital communications, allowing the digitalcommunications to bypass some or all filtering operations normallycarried out by the message processing system 140, and/or immediatelyforwarding the digital communications to the recipient systems 120.

The message processing system 140 also may monitor the compliance ofbulk message senders with bulk sender behavior policies and create,update, and maintain sender compliance data records in, for example, adata store. The compliance monitoring may be accomplished by identifyingand tracking the sending patterns of bulk message senders. The sendingpatterns may include, but are not limited to, information relating tothe number of digital communications delivered successfully torecipients, the number of digital communications designated asundeliverable and returned to the bulk message sender, and recipientfeedback regarding the digital communications received from the bulkmessage sender.

The message processing system 140 may be configured to process differenttypes of digital communications sent by the bulk message sender (e.g.,e-mails and instant messages). The extent of compliance with bulk senderbehavior policies may be used to distinguish digital communications sentby the bulk message sender across different communication platforms(e.g., compliance with bulk sender behavior policies may result indistinctly handling both e-mails and instant messages sent by the bulkmessage sender). In this manner, the bulk sender behavior policies maybe employed as a general authentication mechanism used to legitimize thebulk message sender and distinguish all or multiple types of digitalcommunications sent by the bulk message sender from those sent by otherless trusted senders.

FIG. 2 shows a process 200 for approving a bulk message sender fordistinctive treatment. The process 200 may include having the bulkmessage sender agree to comply with a set of bulk sender behaviorpolicies (210). The ability of the bulk message sender to comply withthe bulk sender behavior policies may be determined through one or moreinitial compliance tests (220). The initial compliance tests typicallyare used to verify that the bulk message sender system 110 is able tocomply technically with the bulk sender behavior policies. For example,the initial compliance tests may be used to assess the security of thebulk message sender system 110 and the ability of the message processingsystem 140 to identify accurately the bulk message sender system 110based on digital communications received from the bulk message sendersystem 110. If the bulk message sender system 110 does not pass theinitial compliance tests, no distinctive treatment may be awarded todigital communications sent from the bulk message sender (230).

The bulk message sender system 110 passes the initial compliance tests,the recipient system 120 and/or the message processing system 140 maytreat the digital communications sent from the bulk message senderdistinctly from ordinary digital communications (240). The distinctivetreatment awarded to the digital communications may vary depending onthe extent of compliance (e.g., a higher level of compliance may resultin greater preferential treatment than a lower level of compliance). Thecompliance of the bulk message sender with the bulk sender behaviorpolicies may be monitored periodically over time (250). The monitoringmay be performed automatically by the message processing system 140based on the sending patterns of the bulk message sender or manually bysystem operators of the message processing system 140. Reports may begenerated at regular intervals or may be triggered upon occurrence of anevent. For example, a report may be generated when the behavior of thebulk message sender crosses a predetermined threshold of noncompliance(e.g., the number of digital communications unsuccessfully deliveredsurpasses a threshold number).

If the bulk message sender continues to comply with bulk sender behaviorpolicies, the digital communications received from the bulk messagesender continue to be handled distinctly from other digitalcommunications. Depending on the extent of compliance of the bulkmessage sender with bulk sender behavior policies, the distinctivetreatment awarded to digital communications received from the bulkmessage sender may change over time (e.g., initial preferentialtreatment may be lower than the preferential treatment provided when thebulk message sender has complied with the policies for an extendedperiod of time). If, however, the bulk message sender is not complyingwith bulk sender behavior policies within a specified tolerance level,the digital communications sent by the bulk message sender may no longerbe awarded distinctive treatment (230).

FIG. 3 shows a process 300 used by the communications system 100 todistinctly treat digital communications sent by a bulk message sendercomplying with bulk sender behavior policies. Initially, the bulkmessage sender system 110 sends a digital communication to one or morerecipients (302).

The message processing system 140 receives the digital communicationfrom the bulk message sender system 110 (304) and identifies the bulkmessage sender by, for example, sender name, domain name, InternetProtocol (IP) address, and/or another identifier (306). Once the bulkmessage sender is identified, the message processing system 140determines whether and to what extent the bulk message sender iscomplying with a set of bulk sender behavior policies by, for example,accessing a sender compliance data record associated with the identifiedbulk message sender (308).

If the bulk message sender is complying with the bulk sender behaviorpolicies, the digital communication received from the bulk messagesender may be handled by the message processing system 140 distinctlyfrom ordinary digital communications (e.g., the digital communicationmay be allowed to bypass all filtering operations) (310). Thisdistinctive treatment may vary depending on the extent of compliance.The handling of the digital communication may include one or more of thefollowing operations: storing the digital communication, deleting thedigital communication, sending the digital communication to therecipient system(s) 120, and/or returning the digital communicationundelivered to the bulk message sender system 110 (i.e., “bouncing” thedigital communication back to the sender).

When the digital communication is sent, the recipient system 120receives the digital communication (312), determines that the bulkmessage sender is complying with bulk sender behavior policies (314),and handles the digital communication distinctly from ordinary digitalcommunications (e.g., by visually distinguishing the digitalcommunication from ordinary digital communications when depicted in auser interface) (316).

If the bulk message sender is not complying with bulk sender behaviorpolicies, the digital communication received from the bulk messagesender by the message processing system 140 is handled like an ordinarydigital communication (318). Upon receipt of the digital communication(312), the recipient system 120 alternatively may determine that thebulk message sender is not complying with bulk sender behavior policies(314), and, upon such a determination, handles the digital communicationlike an ordinary digital communication (320).

Process 300 includes having both the message processing system 140 andthe recipient system 120 determine whether the bulk message sender iscomplying with bulk sender behavior policies and provide the digitalcommunication with distinctive treatment based on compliance with thebulk sender behavior policies. In other implementations, the recipientsystems 120 or the message processing system 140, but not both, may makethis determination and/or may provide the distinctive treatment.

FIG. 4 shows an e-mail system 400 capable of distinguishing andpreferentially treating e-mails sent by bulk mail senders. The system400 includes a bulk mail sender system 410 able to send an e-mail to oneor more recipient systems 420 through a network 430 and a host mailsystem 440. The bulk mail sender system 410 typically includes a device412 capable of executing instructions under the command of a controller414. The device 412 may be connected to the controller 414 by a wired orwireless data path 416. The recipient system 420 typically includes adevice 422 capable of executing instructions under the command of acontroller 424. The device 422 may be connected to the controller 424 bya wired or wireless data path 426.

Examples of each element within the e-mail system 400 of FIG. 4 aredescribed broadly above with respect to FIG. 1. In particular, the bulkmail sender system 410, the device 412, the controller 414, the link416, the recipient system 420, the device 422, the controller 424, thelink 426, the network 430, and the host mail system 440 typically haveattributes comparable to those described with respect to the bulkmessage sender system 110, the device 112, the controller 114, the link116, the recipient system 120, the device 122, the controller 124, thelink 126, the network 130, and the message processing system 140 of FIG.1, respectively.

The bulk mail sender system 410 also may include an intermediate e-mailtransfer server or relay 418 that accepts the e-mail from the device 412and relays the e-mail to the host mail system 440. The intermediateserver or relay may be local or remote to the device 412. In oneimplementation, the intermediate e-mail transfer server or relay may bea UNIX machine that communicates with the device 412 and the host mailsystem 440 using SMTP.

The recipient system 420 may be configured to identify e-mails sent bybulk mail senders behaving in compliance with bulk mail policies by, forexample, examining the e-mail contents (e.g., the contents may bemodified by the host mail system 440 to indicate sender compliance),communicating with the host mail system 440 to verify sender status,and/or referencing a local or remote lookup table or equivalent toverify that the sender, as designated by sender name, domain name, IPaddress, and/or other identifier, is complying with bulk mail policies.In host-based mail systems, similar operations and functionality may beprovided at a host to enable similar experiences by a recipient of bulke-mail.

The host mail system 440 includes a message identification andfiltration system 445, a bounce server 450, a mailbox system 455, acomputer log server 460, and a compliance monitoring computer 465. Themessage identification and filtration system 445 is configured to accepte-mails from the bulk mail sender system 410, identify and filter thee-mails, and selectively forward some or all of the e-mails to thebounce server 450 and/or to the mailbox system 455. The messageidentification and filtration system 445 may be configured to identifyand filter e-mails based on various factors including, but not limitedto, the e-mail contents, the volume and pattern of e-mails sent by thebulk mail sender, and the complaints received from recipients regardingthe e-mails or regarding the bulk mail sender. The messageidentification and filtration system 445 also may be configured toperform spam filtering (i.e., the identification and filtering ofunsolicited and undesirable e-mails).

The message identification and filtration system 445 may be configuredto filter out e-mails by deleting the e-mails or by sending the e-mailsto the bounce server 450 for subsequent return to the bulk mail sendersystem 410. E-mails that are not filtered out are sent to the mailboxsystem 455 for storage.

The message identification and filtration system 445 may be configuredto preferentially treat e-mails from bulk mail senders that comply withbulk mail policies by, for example, modifying the contents of thee-mails sent by the bulk mail sender to indicate preferred status and/orby allowing the e-mails to bypass some or all of the filtering. Thee-mail contents may be modified to indicate preferred status by, forexample, adding and/or turning ON a flag in the header of the e-mailand/or including specific text in the body of the e-mail. Theidentification and filtration system 445 may be configured to determinewhich senders are complying with bulk mail policies by, for example,accessing a local lookup table, or communicating with another computer,server, or device to request the status of the bulk mail sender.

The message identification and filtration system 445 may be a computersystem including one or more general or special purpose computers. Inone implementation, the message identification and filtration system 445is a computer system composed of one or more UNIX machines that use afile transfer protocol such as SMTP to communicate with the bulk mailsender system 410, the one or more recipient systems 420, the bounceserver 450, and the mailbox system 455.

The bounce server 450 is configured to receive e-mails from the messageidentification and filtering system 445 and from the mailbox system 455,and return or “bounce” the e-mails back to the bulk mail sender system410. E-mails may be bounced back to the bulk mail sender system 410 whena temporary delivery failure or a permanent delivery failure occurs.

Temporary delivery failures may occur for a variety of differentreasons. For example, a temporary delivery failure may occur when thenetwork 430 fails to properly transmit the message from the bulk mailsender system 410 to the message identification and filtration system445 (e.g., too many message packets were lost because of network orserver congestion). A temporary delivery failure also may occur when theDomain Name System (DNS) information in the e-mail header is inaccurate(e.g., the address domain name in the “from” field does not exist). Inthese examples, because the delivery failure is temporary, the messageidentification and filtration system 445 or the mailbox system 455forwards the e-mail to the bounce server 450 which, in turn, bounces thee-mail back to the bulk mail sender system 410. Temporary deliveryfailures are temporary in the sense that the e-mail may still be sent tothe recipient upon resolving the network and/or domain name issues.

Permanent delivery failures are different than temporary deliveryfailures in that the recipient may not receive an e-mail regardless ofany resolution of network or e-mail content related issues. Permanentdelivery failures typically occur due to the inability of the recipientmailbox system 455 to store the e-mail. For example, the mailbox system455 may not be able to find the recipient among those serviced by themailbox system 455, or the mailbox of the recipient (i.e., the storagespace allotted to the recipient) may be full and unable to accept moree-mails. The mailbox system 455 also may allow recipients to designatethat certain e-mails from certain senders and/or containing certaincontent not be allowed to be delivered to their mailbox (e.g., parentalcontrols may be set to prevent the deposit of pornographic e-mails).Thus, permanent delivery failures may occur due to spam filtering. Themailbox system 455 and the message identification and filtration system445 may employ spam filtering that identifies spam and may bounce thee-mail back to the bulk mail sender system 410 if the e-mail isclassified as spam.

The bounce server 450 typically appends an error message to the e-mailbefore sending the e-mail back to the bulk mail sender system 410. Theerror message may be, for example, a 300 or 400 series e-mail errormessage for temporary delivery failures and a 500 series e-mail errormessage for permanent delivery failures. The bounce server 450 may sendthe e-mail back to the bulk mail sender system 410 using, for example,an SMTP transaction. If the bulk mail sender system 410 is unable toaccept the bounced back e-mail, the SMTP transaction is not completed,and the bounce server 450 discards the e-mail.

The bounce server 450 may be included in one or more of the computersystems 445 or 455 or may be a separate computer system including one ormore general or special purpose computers able to receive e-mails fromboth the message identification and filtration system 445 and themailbox system 455 and able to send the e-mails back to the bulk mailsender system 410. In one implementation, the computers are UNIXmachines capable of communicating with the message identification andfiltration system 445, the mailbox system 455, and the bulk mail sendersystem 410 using a file transfer protocol such as SMTP.

The mailbox system 455 receives and stores e-mails sent by the bulk mailsender 410 that are not bounced or deleted by the message identificationand filtration system 445. The e-mails typically are segmented intoconstituent parts and stored in storage locations corresponding to themailbox or mailboxes of the one or more recipients. A recipient system420 may access e-mails stored in a mailbox by communicating directlywith the mailbox system 455 using a mail retrieval protocol such as, forexample, POP or IMAP.

The mailbox system 455 also may communicate with a complaints data store457 in which complaints directed towards specific e-mails or e-mailsenders are stored. The complaints may include, for example, electronicrecords of phoned-in complaints, complaints received through postalmail, and/or complaints received through e-mail. E-mail complaints maybe generated in a manner similar to that disclosed in U.S. applicationSer. No. 10/306,880, which was filed Nov. 27, 2002, is titledIDENTIFICATION AND FILTRATION OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS, and is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety.

The mailbox system 455 may treat preferentially e-mails from bulk mailsenders complying with bulk mail policies by, for example, allowing thee-mails to bypass some or all of the spam filtering normally done by themailbox system 455 and/or by placing the e-mails in a special substorage location or folder associated with the mailbox of eachrecipient. The mailbox system 455 may determine which senders arecomplying with bulk mail policies by, for example, accessing thecomplaint data store 457, accessing a log data store 462 (discussedbelow), accessing a local lookup table, or communicating with anothercomputer, server, or device to request the status of the bulk mailsender. The bulk mail sender may be identified by extracting from thee-mail header information the sender name, the domain name, and/or theIP address of the bulk mail sender.

The mailbox system 455 may be a computer system including one or moregeneral or special purpose computers, devices, servers, or componentscapable of receiving, segmenting, and storing e-mails. In oneimplementation, the computers are UNIX machines that communicate withthe message identification and filtration system 445 and the bounceserver 450 using SMTP and communicate with the recipients systems 420using POP or IMAP.

The computer log server 460 is configured to receive computer activitydata (i.e., computer log data) from the message identification andfiltration system 445, the bounce server 450, and/or the mailbox system455. The message identification and filtration system 445 may, forexample, provide data that includes the number and type of e-mailsreceived (e.g., the number of e-mails received from a given sender name,domain name, or IP address and/or sent to a given recipient name, domainname, or IP address, and whether the e-mails received are spam, bulkmail, or ordinary mail), the header information or other portions of thecontent of those e-mails, the number of e-mails deleted, the number ofe-mails sent to the bounce server 450, and the number of e-mails sent tothe mailbox system 455. The bounce server 450 may provide data thatincludes the number and type of e-mails bounced (e.g., the number ofbounced e-mails due to temporary and permanent delivery failures), andthe number of bounced e-mails successfully received by the bulk mailsender system 410. The mailbox system 455 may provide data relating tothe segmentation and storage of the e-mails, the complaints receivedfrom recipients associated with the e-mails or e-mail senders, and thenumber of e-mails bounced due to spam filtering or due to mailboxstorage restrictions. This computer activity data may be continuously orperiodically received by the computer log server 460 from each of thesystems 445, 450, and 455 through either a push or pull deliverymechanism.

In one implementation, the computer log server 460 is a UNIX machinethat requests process activity data every thirty minutes from thesystems 445, 450, and 455 using a general network communication protocolsuch as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). TheUNIX machine may be programmed to request, process, and store systemactivity data every thirty minutes by adding entries to chronologytables (crontabs) of the machine to invoke data request scripts (i.e.,lists of computer commands that may be executed without userinteraction) every thirty minutes.

The computer log server 460 may process and store the computer activitydata in a log data store 462. The processing may include segmentation ofthe data and/or statistical processing of the data to determine, forexample, aggregate numbers, averages, moving averages, and otherstatistical figures of merit. The log data store 462 may index the datain a variety of different ways including by sender name, IP address,domain name, recipient name, date received, file size, and/or by anyother portion of the content of received e-mails (e.g., header, body, orattachments). The data may be compressed prior to storage in the logdata store 462. In one implementation, the log data store 462 isincluded in the computer log server 460. In another implementation, thelog data store 462 is included in a computer or computer systemaccessible to the computer log server 460.

The compliance monitoring computer 465 monitors the compliance of bulkmail senders with bulk mail policies by accessing the information storedin the log data store 462 and in the complaint data store 457. Thecompliance monitoring computer 465 may create and periodically updatesender compliance data records that include information related to thecompliance of at least each registered or otherwise identified bulk mailsender with bulk mail policies. The compliance monitoring computer 465also may generate and send to a bulk mail sender a sender compliancereport that describes the compliance of the bulk mail sender with bulkmail policies over a specified interval of time.

The compliance monitoring computer 465 may create and periodicallyupdate a sender compliance data record for each bulk mail sender. Thesender compliance data record for each bulk mail sender may be stored ina data store in any of the message identification and filtration system445, the mailbox system 455, the complaint data store 457, the log datastore 462, the computer log server 460, the compliance monitoringcomputer 465, and/or any data store accessible to the compliancemonitoring computer 465 and to the systems 445, 455, and 420. Themessage identification and filtration system 445, the mailbox system455, and/or the recipient systems 420 may access the sender compliancedata records to determine whether an e-mail sent by a bulk mail sendershould be preferentially treated.

A sender compliance data record may include a compliance flag and mayidentify the bulk mail sender, for instance, by the sender name, thedomain name, the IP address of the bulk mail sender, and/or any otheridentifier. The compliance flag may be used to track bulk mail sendercompliance with bulk mail policies. For example, the compliancemonitoring computer 465 may automatically turn ON the compliance flagwhen the bulk mail sender is complying with specified bulk mail policiesand turn OFF the compliance flag when the bulk mail sender is not incompliance. Alternatively or additionally, a user of the compliancemonitoring computer 465 or a system operator of the host mail system 440may manually access and turn ON and OFF the compliance flag of a sendercompliance data record corresponding to a given bulk mail sender. Theuser or system operator may manually turn ON and OFF the compliance flagbased on, for example, the sender compliance reports, the data stored inthe complaint data store 457, the data stored in the computer log store462, and/or any other data directed to the compliance of the given bulkmail sender with bulk mail policies.

A sender compliance data record may track multiple levels or tiers ofcompliance through the use of multiple compliance flags. The multiplecompliance flags may be turned ON or OFF automatically or manually inthe same manner as disclosed above based on the extent of compliance ofthe bulk mail sender with specified bulk mail policies. For example, aflag may correspond to excellent compliance if the bulk mail senderalways complies with all policies, and another flag may correspond togood compliance if the bulk mail sender usually complies with allpolicies. Excellent compliance may result in better preferentialtreatment by the systems 445, 455, and/or 420 than good compliance.

The compliance monitoring computer 465 may generate and send sendercompliance reports to bulk mail senders at periodic intervals and/orupon occurrence of triggering events. The sender compliance reportsserve to keep the bulk mail sender informed of its current level ofcompliance or noncompliance with bulk mail policies. The triggeringevents may include the bulk mail sender not complying with one or morepolicies (e.g., receiving a number of complaints from recipientsregarding the behavior of the bulk mail sender), and/or the bulk mailsender egregiously not complying with other policies (e.g., rejectingevery e-mail that is bounced back by the host mail system 440). Thesender compliance reports may be sent manually to the bulk mail sendersusing, for example, postal mail, or they may be sent automatically tothe bulk mail senders using, for example, e-mail.

A sender compliance report may include a breakdown or list of thepolicies that the bulk mail sender is following and/or not following.The sender compliance reports also may include one or all of therecipient complaints received by the host mail system 440 over a giventime interval and directed to the bulk mail sender in general ordirected to specific e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender in particular.

In one implementation, the compliance monitoring computer 465 is a UNIXmachine that monitors bulk mail sender compliance and generates andsends a sender compliance report every twenty four hours. Specifically,the UNIX machine retrieves data related to identified bulk mail sendersfrom the log data store 462 and the complaint data store 457, processesthe data to verify sender compliance with specified bulk mail policies,and generates and sends sender compliance reports to each bulk mailsender that exhibits behavior that surpasses a predetermined thresholdof noncompliance. The UNIX machine may be programmed to retrieve data,process the data, and generate and send sender compliance reportsperiodically (e.g., every twenty four hours) or otherwise by addingentries to the chronology tables (crontabs) of the machine to invokereport generation scripts at a specified periodic interval (e.g., everytwenty four hour interval). A user of the UNIX machine may access andmodify compliance data records based on the generated reports.Alternatively, the report generation scripts may be programmed to bothgenerate reports and automatically modify sender compliance data recordsevery twenty four hours.

A set of exemplary bulk mail policies is shown in Table 1. In the Table1 example, the main goals of the depicted bulk mail policies includeensuring that the bulk mail sender system 410 is secure (e.g., not opento third party senders), is located at a “fixed point” in IP-space(i.e., its IP address or addresses do not vary over time), and does notoverload the host mail system 440. The bulk mail policies may bedivided, for example, into three types of policies: (1) e-mail relayconfiguration policies, (2) e-mail formatting policies, and (3) generalprocedural policies.

TABLE 1 E-mail Relay Configuration Policies E-mails must be Request forComments (RFC) compliant E-mail servers or relays must have validreverse DNS lookups E-mail servers or relays must be closed to thirdparty relaying No use of dynamically assigned IP addresses No hardcodingof the mx records of the host mail system Immediate unsubscription ofe-mail addresses that receive a permanent delivery failure More than 10%of the e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender system must not be bouncedBulk mail sender system must accept more than 90% of bounced e-mailsE-mail Formatting Policies No hiding or forging sender-relatedinformation E-mails must state how and when the address of the recipientwas obtained and whether the e-mail is a one- time mailing or arecurring mailing E-mails must include valid instructions on how tounsubscribe the recipient e-mail address E-mails must include a validnon-Internet contact General Procedural Policies E-mails must besolicited Bulk mail sender must accept and respond to daily compliancereports if noncompliance is reported Bulk mail sender must not receive asignificant number of recipient complaints per million e-mails sent

The e-mail relay configuration policies relate to the manner in whichthe bulk mail sender system 410 relays or transmits e-mails. The e-mailrelay configuration policies may include a requirement that the e-mailssent by the bulk mail sender be request for comments (RFC) compliant(i.e., request for comments by the Network Working Group). RFCcompliance may include the e-mail complying with the e-mail delivery andformat guidelines set forth in RFC 821 and 822. If the e-mail has anembedded universal resource locator (URL) link, the e-mail also may berequired to comply with RFC 1738. The RFC compliance requirement ensuresthat the e-mails are configured in a manner that is consistent andcompatible with the host mail system 440. RFC compliance may bemonitored by the message identification and filtration system 445. Bulkmail sender e-mails that are not RFC compliant may be either deleted orbounced back to the bulk mail sender system 410 through the bounceserver 450.

The e-mail relay configuration policies also may require that theintermediate e-mail relay 418 allow reverse DNS lookups. Reverse DNSlookups permit the host mail system 440 to identify the domain name thatcorresponds to the IP address of the intermediate e-mail relay 418. Thislinking of IP address to domain name helps decrease the anonymity of thee-mails sent by the bulk mail sender system 410. The messageidentification and filtration system 445 may do a reverse DNS lookupeach time an e-mail is received from the intermediate e-mail relay 418of the bulk mail sender system 410. The message identification andfiltration system 445 may either delete or bounce back any e-mails sentfrom intermediate e-mail relays 418 that do not have valid reverse DNSlookups.

The e-mail relay configuration policies also may require that theintermediate e-mail relay 418 be closed to third party relaying. Byverifying that the intermediate e-mail relay 418 is closed to thirdparty relaying, the host mail system 440 may prevent anonymous thirdparties from masking their e-mails by sending them through theintermediate e-mail relay 418. Verification that the intermediate e-mailrelay 418 of a bulk mail sender system 410 is not allowing third partyrelaying may be accomplished by performing an “open relay” or “openproxy” test. The compliance monitoring computer 465 may perform thesetests at certain intervals of time (e.g., weekly) automatically throughthe use of scripts. For example, a script may attempt to send an e-mailto the IP address of an intermediate e-mail relay 418. The e-mail isaddressed back to the e-mail account used by the compliance monitoringcomputer 465. If the e-mail is successfully received by the compliancemonitoring computer 465 through the intermediate e-mail relay 418, thenthe intermediate e-mail relay 418 is deemed open to third partyrelaying. If the e-mail is bounced back to the compliance monitoringcomputer 465 with an error or not received at all by the compliancemonitoring computer 465, then the intermediate e-mail relay 418 isclosed to third party relaying. Alternatively or additionally, a systemoperator or user may manually perform “open relay” or “open proxy”tests.

The e-mail relay configuration policies also may require that e-mailssent from the bulk mail sender system 410 not be sent fromdynamically-assigned IP addresses. Dynamically-assigned IP addresses areIP addresses that typically are assigned to a sender when the senderlogs into an ISP account using a dial-up connection.Dynamically-assigned IP addresses are inherently more anonymous and lesssecure than static IP addresses. The message identification andfiltration system 445 may ensure that the IP address from which a givenbulk mail sender e-mail is sent is not a dynamic IP address by comparingthe IP address of the bulk mail sender e-mail with known ranges of IPaddresses assigned to dynamic IP addresses.

The e-mail relay configuration policies also may require that theintermediate e-mail relay 418 not hardcode the mail exchange (mx)records of the host mail system 440. In order to optimize e-mail trafficload balancing among the various servers in the host mail system 440,the system operators of the host mail system 440 may change periodicallythe mx records corresponding to the host mail system 440. By hardcodingthe mx records, however, the bulk mail sender system 410 ignores theseload balancing changes and may, therefore, send e-mails to servers thatare already overloaded, thereby exacerbating server overload problems.Determining when a given bulk mail sender system 410 has hardcoded themx records of the host mail system 440 may be accomplished by monitoringthe e-mail traffic loading of the mail servers in the messageidentification and filtration system 445. Loading that significantlydiverges from that expected due to the modified mx records may befurther analyzed to identify any bulk mail sender systems 410 that arecontributing to the unexpected loading. Bulk mail sender systems 410that are contributing to the unexpected loading typically have hardcodedthe mx records of the host mail system 440.

The e-mail relay configuration policies also may require that bulk mailsenders remove any e-mail address from their list of potentialrecipients if an e-mail sent to that e-mail address is bounced back dueto a permanent delivery failure. This policy forces bulk mail senders tokeep their lists up-to-date, thereby helping to prevent the host mailsystem 440 from needlessly processing invalid or unwanted e-mails.Determining when a given bulk mail sender system 410 is not complyingwith the policy requiring e-mail address list removal upon receipt of apermanent delivery failure bounce may be accomplished by monitoring thebounce patterns of e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender system 410. Thebounce patterns may be calculated by processing the bounce data storedin the log data store 462. Bounce patterns may show noncompliance by,for example, indicating repeated bounces to the same e-mail addressesover a short duration.

The e-mail relay configuration policies also may require that not morethan a specific threshold or amount, for example 10%, of the e-mailssent by the bulk mail sender system 410 to the host mail system 440 bebounced back to the bulk mail sender system 410. This policy forces bulkmail senders to keep their lists up-to-date, thereby helping to preventthe host mail system 440 from needlessly processing invalid or unwantede-mails. The compliance monitoring computer 465 may monitor compliancewith this policy automatically by, for example, periodically runningscripts that access the log data store 462 to retrieve the total numberof e-mails sent and the total number of e-mails bounced for each bulkmail sender system 410. Alternatively, compliance may be monitored by auser or system operator that manually accesses the data from the logdata store 462.

The e-mail relay configuration policies also may require that the bulkmail sender system 410 accept more than a specific threshold or amount,for example 90%, of the bounced e-mails sent by the bounce server 450 tothe bulk mail sender system 410. This policy forces the bulk mail sendersystem 410 to allot capacity to accept and handle bounced e-mails,thereby helping to prevent the bounce server 450 from needlesslyprocessing unsuccessfully bounced e-mails. Unsuccessfully bouncede-mails may be tracked by the bounce server 450 by, for example, keepingrecords of each e-mail bounce SMTP transaction with each bulk mailsender system 410. If an e-mail bounce SMTP transaction is notsuccessfully completed, the bounce server 450 generates a record of theunsuccessful e-mail bounce SMTP transaction and periodically sends thisrecord (along with other computer log data) to the computer log server460 for storage in the log data store 462. The compliance monitoringcomputer 465 may automatically monitor compliance with this policy by,for example, periodically running scripts that access the log data store462 to retrieve the total number of bounced e-mails and the total numberof unsuccessful e-mail bounce SMTP transactions for each bulk mailsender system 410. Alternatively, compliance may be monitored by a useror system operator that manually accesses the data from the log datastore 462.

The e-mail formatting policies may be directed to controlling thecontents of the e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender. The e-mailformatting policies increase the accountability of the bulk mail senderand prevent the bulk mail sender from including in the e-mailsinformation that may mislead or deceive recipients.

The e-mail formatting policies may require that the bulk mail sender nothide or forge information related to the sender or sending site of thee-mail. For example, the e-mail “from” address, return path, time stamp,or any other header-related information may be required to be accurate,complete, and/or not misleading.

The e-mail formatting policies also may require that the bulk mailsender state how and when the e-mail address of the recipient wasobtained and whether the e-mail is a one-time mailing or a recurringmailing. For example, an e-mail may state “Your e-mail address wasobtained from Common-Travel.com on Aug. 2, 2002. You may receive futuree-mails from us related to products that may be of interest to you.”

The e-mail formatting policies also may require that the text of eache-mail sent by the bulk mail sender include valid instructions on how arecipient may remove his or her e-mail address from the mailing list ofthe bulk mail sender. The removal instructions may be required to beobvious, clear, and easily understood. The removal instructions mayinclude, for example, a workable URL link to a one-click unsubscribemechanism. Alternatively or additionally, the removal instructions mayinclude instructions to “reply to” a valid e-mail address of the bulkmail sender.

The e-mail formatting policies also may require that the text of eache-mail include valid non-Internet contact information such as, forexample, a postal mail address or a phone number. In some cases, thevalid non-Internet contact information may be included in the e-mail byproviding a workable URL link in the text of the e-mail that is directedto valid non-Internet contact information displayed on the web page ofthe bulk mail sender.

In general, monitoring bulk mail sender compliance with the e-mailformatting policies may be accomplished by monitoring and examiningrecipient complaints. When a recipient complains about an e-mail sent bya bulk mail sender, the system operators of the host mail system 440 mayexamine and identify any deceptive information in the e-mail. Themessage identification and filtration system 445 may then be programmedto proactively filter e-mails containing the deceptive informationthrough string matching and/or content matching using file fingerprintcomparison technologies such as, for example, digital signaturetechnologies. Once a deceptive statement, invalid URL, or invalidnon-Internet contact information is discovered, future e-mailscontaining such statements, links, or information may be proactivelyfiltered by using, for example, a digital signature calculation,storage, search, and filtering process similar to that disclosed in U.S.application Ser. No. 10/306,880 for filtering e-mails based on recipientcomplaints.

The general procedural policies relate to the general process that mustbe followed by the bulk mail sender to obtain preferential status. Thegeneral procedural policies may require that the e-mails sent by thebulk mail sender be solicited. In other words, the bulk mail sender maybe required to have a preexisting and provable relationship with therecipient before sending the recipient an e-mail. A preexistingrelationship may include, for example, the recipient having visited aweb-site associated with the bulk mail sender and having proactivelysigned up to receive information from the bulk mail sender. Apreexisting relationship also may include the recipient voluntarilyproviding an e-mail address to an organization without placingrestraints on the use of the e-mail address. The e-mail address then ispurchased by the bulk mail sender from the organization and used by thebulk mail sender to send e-mails to the recipient.

The general procedural policies also may require that the bulk mailsender accept and respond to any sender compliance reports that indicatenoncompliance with some or all of the bulk mail policies. The time torespond to the sender compliance reports may be limited to a specificperiod of time (e.g., must respond within a week). Repeatednoncompliance with bulk mail policies may result in loss of preferentialstatus.

The general procedural policies also may require that the e-mails sentby the bulk mail sender not generate more than a given threshold numberof complaints from recipients. For example, the e-mail formattingpolicies may require that a bulk mail sender not receive more than 100complaints per million messages sent. The number of complaints directedto a bulk mail sender may be accessed, for example, from the complaintdata store 457 and the total number of e-mails sent by the bulk mailsender may be accessed from the log data store 462.

FIGS. 5A and 5B show an exemplary process 500 for approving a bulk mailsender for preferential treatment. The process 500 includes a two-tieredcompliance test. Initial compliance with the bulk mail policies resultsin the bulk mail sender being placed on a “white list.” Placement on thewhite list awards tier one preferential treatment to the e-mails sent bythe bulk mail sender. Tier one preferential treatment may include, forexample, allowing the e-mails to bypass e-mail content-related ande-mail sender-related message filtering carried out both by the messageidentification and filtration system 445 and by the mailbox system 455(i.e., the spam filters are bypassed, but the mailbox filters set up bythe recipient and the mailbox capacity filters are not bypassed).

Proven compliance with bulk mail policies over time results in the bulkmail sender being placed on an “approved bulk mail sender” list.Placement on the approved bulk mail sender list awards tier twopreferential treatment to the e-mails sent by the bulk mail sendersystem 410. Tier two preferential treatment may include, for example,the preferential treatment of tier one and additionally may include therecipient system 420 displaying the e-mails to the recipient in apreferential manner (e.g., by placing an “approved bulk mail sender”icon next to each e-mail displayed in the inbox of the recipient).

Typically, the bulk mail sender approaches the system operators of thehost mail system 440 to request preferential treatment. The request maybe made manually through a telephone call or letter or it may be madeelectronically by, for example, filling out an application on aweb-site. The bulk mail sender is subsequently presented with and agreesto comply with a list of bulk mail policies (502). Agreement may beachieved, for example, by signing or otherwise agreeing (e.g., byclicking through) to a legally binding contract.

The bulk mail sender system 410 undergoes a series of initial technicalcompliance tests (504). The initial technical compliance tests verifythat the bulk mail sender system 410 is secure and technically able tocomply with the bulk mail policies. For example, the initial technicalcompliance tests may include an “open relay” and an “open proxy” test toverify that the bulk mail sender system 410 is not open to third partyrelaying. The technical compliance tests also may include tests thatverify that the DNS configuration of the bulk mail sender system 410 hasa preferred configuration (e.g., allows reverse DNS lookups). If thebulk mail sender system 410 does not pass the initial technicalcompliance tests, the e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender is notawarded preferential treatment by the host mail system 440 or by therecipient system 420 (506).

However, if the bulk mail sender system 410 passes the initial technicalcompliance tests, the bulk mail sender is placed on a white list, andthe e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender are awarded tier onepreferential treatment (508). In one implementation, a system operatormay create a sender compliance data record for the bulk mail sender uponthe bulk mail sender agreeing to comply with the bulk mail policies. Thesender compliance data record may include a white list compliance flagthat is turned ON when the bulk mail sender system 410 passes theinitial technical compliance tests. The sender compliance data recordmay be subsequently accessed by the message identification andfiltration system 445 and/or the mailbox system 455 each time an e-mailis received from the bulk mail sender. If the white list compliance flagis turned ON, the message identification and filtration system 445and/or the mailbox system 455 awards the e-mail tier one preferentialtreatment by, for example, allowing the e-mail to bypass e-mailcontent-related and e-mail sender-related message filtering.

Thereafter, the behavior of the bulk mail sender is monitored for afirst time interval to assess whether the behavior complies with bulkmail policies in accordance with a specified tolerance level (510). Inone implementation, the first time interval is 24 hours, and thecompliance data collected from the log data store 462 and the complaintdata store 457 by the complaint monitoring computer 465 includes: (1)the total number of e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender system 410, (2)the total number of e-mails bounced to the bulk mail sender system 410,(3) the total number of bounced e-mails successfully received by thebulk mail sender system 410, and (4) the total number of complaintsgenerated in response to e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender. Thiscompliance data may be collected for a twenty four hour period and thenused to determine whether the bulk mail sender compliance falls withinthe specified tolerance level. For example, the bulk mail sendercompliance may fall within an acceptable tolerance level if the bulkmail sender sends less than 8000 e-mails during the twenty four hourperiod OR if the bulk mail sender: (1) bounces less than 10% of thetotal e-mails sent (i.e., the total number of bounced e-mails divided bythe total number of e-mails sent over the twenty four hour period mustbe less than 10%); (2) accepts more than 90% of the bounced e-mails(i.e., the total number of bounced e-mails successfully received by thebulk mail sender system 410 divided by the total number of bouncede-mails for the twenty four hour period must be greater than 90%); and(3) generates less than 100 complaints per million e-mails sent (i.e.,the total number of complaints generated divided by the total number ofe-mails sent in millions over the twenty four hour period must be lessthan 100). If the bulk mail sender sends more than 8000 e-mails and doesnot comply with one or more of the specified requirements over thetwenty four hour period, the compliance of the bulk mail sender fallsoutside of the specified tolerance level.

If the compliance of the bulk mail sender falls outside of a specifiedtolerance level, the noncompliance of the bulk mail sender is furtherexamined to assess whether the noncompliance is egregious (512).Egregious noncompliance may include, for example, surpassing thethreshold of compliance by a factor of two or three (e.g., bounce 30% ofe-mails, receive 300 complaints per million e-mails sent, accept only30% of bounced e-mails) and/or repeated noncompliance over time (e.g.,noncompliance for five twenty four hour periods in one month).

If the noncompliance of the bulk mail sender is egregious, thecompliance monitoring computer 465 generates and sends to the bulk mailsender a white list removal report (514). The white list removal reportis a sender compliance report that informs the bulk mail sender of theremoval of the bulk mail sender from the white list due to egregiousnoncompliance. The white list removal report may include a breakdown ofsender behavior data that shows the egregious noncompliance of the bulkmail sender with bulk mail policies. The sender behavior data mayinclude processed compliance data collected from the complaint datastore 457 and the log data store 462 by the compliance monitoringcomputer 465. The white list removal report may be sent electronicallyusing, for example, e-mail or manually using, for example, postal mailor a telephone. Table 2 shows an example of a white list removal report.

TABLE 2 Dear BULK MAIL SENDER,    You are receiving this message via ourautomated report generation processes, which audit HMS's Internetinbound mail flow, specifically:  1) the number of bounces a sender'smailings generate   (percent of invalid email addresses per 24 hourperiod),  2) the percentage of bounces we return to the sender   thatthe sending party's servers can accept,  3) the number of complaintssenders' mailings generate   over the last 24 hours.    You have brokenone or more of the following thresholds and, therefore, are receivingthis white list removal report:  1) bounce more than 10% of your list 2) take less than 90% of the bounces we wish to send back to you  3)generate more than 100 complaints per million messages   we receive fromyour servers.  HMS is contacting you because the bulk email that isbeing sent from BULK MAIL SENDER is causing problems with our day to dayemail operations. When sending email to HMS, we would advise that BULKMAIL SENDER adhere to our suggested bulk mail policies. BULK MAIL SENDERis being removed from our white list due to egregious noncompliance toour bulk mail policies. The bulk e-mail that is being sent from BULKMAIL SENDER is no longer being awarded preferential treatment.  BULKMAIL SENDER is being removed from our white list due to behavior thathas caused a significant negative impact on our system or memberexperience. BULK MAIL SENDER has significantly risen above currentthresholds on 1 or more of the following issues: Total percentage ofmessages bounced: 9% Total percentage of bounces accepted by BULK MAILSENDER: 92% Total number of HMS member complaints per million messages:950  Please contact us directly via email within the next 72 hours toadvise HMS of BULK MAIL SENDER's intended plan of action for addressingthese issues. An acceptable plan of action may place BULK MAIL SENDERback on our white list. If you do not respond, HMS reserves the right totake all necessary measures to protect the operations of its emailsystem and prevent further HMS member complaints, up to and includingsuspending BULK MAIL SENDER's ability to transmit email to HMS members.   If BULK MAIL SENDER is receiving this email because of high HMSmember complaints, please respond to this email with an abuse emailaddress where HMS can forward the complaints for further action. Thankyou for your time, HMS's Postmaster Staff

Concurrent, subsequent, or prior to generating and sending the whitelist removal report, the compliance monitoring computer 465 removes thebulk mail sender from the white list, thereby resulting in e-mails sentby the bulk mail sender no longer being awarded tier one preferentialtreatment (516). In one implementation, the compliance monitoringcomputer 465 may automatically turn OFF the white list compliance flagin the sender compliance data record corresponding to the bulk mailsender upon detection of egregious noncompliance. In someimplementations, the bulk mail sender may be given an opportunity toaddress egregious noncompliance issues prior to white list removal.

If the noncompliance of the bulk mail sender is not egregious (e.g.,bounces 12% of the total e-mails sent or rarely exhibits noncompliance),the compliance monitoring computer 465 generates and sends to the bulkmail sender a noncompliance report (518). The noncompliance report is asender compliance report that informs the bulk mail sender of itsnoncompliance with bulk mail policies. The noncompliance report mayinclude a list of the bulk mail policies that currently are beingviolated and may request a corrective action plan from the bulk mailsender. Despite the noncompliance, the e-mails sent by the bulk mailsender still are awarded tier one preferential treatment. The behaviorof the bulk mail sender continues to be monitored for the next firsttime interval (i.e., the process 500 returns to operation 510). Table 3shows an example of a noncompliance report.

TABLE 3 Dear BULK MAIL SENDER,    You are receiving this message via ourautomated report generation processes, which audit HMS's Internetinbound mail flow, specifically:  4) the number of bounces a sender'smailings generate   (percent of invalid email addresses per 24 hourperiod),  5) the percentage of bounces we return to the sender   thatthe sending party's servers can accept,  6) the number of complaintssenders' mailings generate   over the last 24 hours.    You have brokenone or more of the following thresholds and, therefore, are receivingthis noncompliance report:  4) bounce more than 10% of your list  5)take less than 90% of the bounces we wish to send back to you  6)generate more than 100 complaints per million messages   we receive fromyour servers.  HMS is contacting you because the bulk email that isbeing sent from BULK MAIL SENDER is causing problems with our day to dayemail operations. When sending email to HMS, we would advise that BULKMAIL SENDER adhere to our suggested bulk mail policies. BULK MAIL SENDERis currently on our white list, and the bulk e-mail that is being sentfrom BULK MAIL SENDER is being awarded preferential treatment. Continuednoncompliance may remove BULK MAIL SENDER from our white list andeliminate any bulk e- mail preferential treatment.  BULK MAIL SENDER hasrisen above current thresholds on 1 or more of the following issues:Total percentage of messages bounced: 16% Total percentage of bouncesaccepted by BULK MAIL SENDER: 92% Total number of HMS member complaintsper million messages: 35  Please contact us directly via email withinthe next 72 hours to advise HMS of BULK MAIL SENDER's intended plan ofaction for addressing these issues. If you do not respond, HMS reservesthe right to take all necessary measures to protect the operations ofits email system and prevent further HMS member complaints, up to andincluding suspending BULK MAIL SENDER's ability to transmit email to HMSmembers.    If BULK MAIL SENDER is receiving this email because of highHMS member complaints, please respond to this email with an abuse emailaddress where HMS can forward the complaints for further action. Thankyou for your time, HMS's Postmaster Staff

If the bulk mail sender is behaving in compliance with the bulk mailpolicies for the first time interval, the monitoring computer 465determines whether the bulk mail sender has been complying with bulkmail policies for a second and longer time interval (520). The secondand longer time interval may be equal to an integer number of first timeintervals. For example, if the first time interval is a day, then thesecond time interval may be a month.

If the bulk mail sender has not been complying with bulk mail policiesfor the second time interval (e.g., bulk mail sender has been incompliance for a day but not for a month), then the behavior of the bulkmail sender continues to be monitored for the next first time interval(i.e., the process 500 returns to operation 510).

If, however, the bulk mail sender has been complying with the bulk mailpolicies for the second time interval, then the bulk mail sender isplaced on an approved bulk mail sender list, and the e-mails sent by thebulk mail sender are awarded tier two preferential treatment (522). Inone implementation, the compliance monitoring computer 465 may place abulk mail sender onto the approved bulk mail sender list by turning ONan approved bulk mail sender compliance flag in the sender compliancedata record of the bulk mail sender. The message identification andfiltration system 445 may designate e-mails sent by the approved bulkmail sender as approved e-mails by, for example, turning ON a bulk mailflag bit in the header of each e-mail sent by the approved bulk mailsender. The recipient systems 420 then may provide tier two preferentialtreatment to these approved e-mails by placing, for example, an“approved bulk mail sender” icon next to a display of informationrelated to each e-mail designated as an approved e-mail. The recipientsystems 420 may identify an approved e-mail by, for example, examiningthe bulk mail flag bit in the header of the e-mail.

FIG. 6 shows an exemplary e-mail user interface 800 showing a list 810of the header information of e-mails received by a recipient. Approvede-mails are set apart through the use of an “approved bulk mail sender”icon 820 displayed next to the corresponding e-mail header information.In addition or as an alternative, other techniques may be used todistinguish communications (e-mails in this implementation) fromcompliant bulk mail senders, visually or otherwise.

In some implementations, the bulk mail sender may be placed on theapproved bulk mail sender list if the bulk mail sender has only receiveda small number of noncompliance reports. For example, if the first timeinterval is a day and the second time interval is a month, the bulk mailsender may still be placed on the approved bulk mail sender list if thebulk mail sender has received only one noncompliance report in a givenmonth.

The behavior of a bulk mail sender that has been placed onto theapproved bulk mail sender list may be monitored regularly every firsttime interval to assess whether the behavior continues to comply withbulk mail policies to within a specified tolerance level (524). If thecompliance of the approved bulk mail sender falls outside of a specifiedtolerance level, the noncompliance of the approved bulk mail sender maybe further examined to assess whether the noncompliance is egregious(526).

If the noncompliance is egregious, the compliance monitoring computer465 may generate and send to the bulk mail sender a list removal report(528). The list removal report is a sender compliance report thatinforms the bulk mail sender of the removal of the bulk mail sender fromboth the approved bulk mail sender list and the white list due toegregious noncompliance. The list removal report may include a breakdownof sender behavior data that shows the egregious noncompliance of thebulk mail sender with bulk mail policies. The sender behavior data mayinclude processed compliance data collected from the complaint datastore 457 and the log data store 462 by the compliance monitoringcomputer 465. The list removal report may be sent electronically using,for example, e-mail or manually using, for example, postal mail or atelephone. Table 4 shows an example of a list removal report.

TABLE 4 Dear BULK MAIL SENDER,    You are receiving this message via ourautomated report generation processes, which audit HMS's Internetinbound mail flow, specifically:  7) the number of bounces a sender'smailings generate   (percent of invalid email addresses per 24 hourperiod),  8) the percentage of bounces we return to the sender that  the sending party's servers can accept,  9) the number of complaintssenders' mailings generate over   the last 24 hours.    You have brokenone or more of the following thresholds and, therefore, are receivingthis list removal report:  7) bounce more than 10% of your list  8) takeless than 90% of the bounces we wish to send back to you  9) generatemore than 100 complaints per million messages   we receive from yourservers.  HMS is contacting you because the bulk email that is beingsent from BULK MAIL SENDER is causing problems with our day to day emailoperations. When sending email to HMS, we would advise that BULK MAILSENDER adhere to our suggested bulk mail policies. BULK MAIL SENDER isbeing removed from our white list and our approved bulk mail sender listdue to egregious noncompliance to our bulk mail policies. The bulke-mail that is being sent from BULK MAIL SENDER is no longer beingawarded preferential treatment.  BULK MAIL SENDER is being removed fromour white list and from our approved bulk mail sender list due tobehavior that has caused a significant negative impact on our system ormember experience. BULK MAIL SENDER has significantly risen abovecurrent thresholds on 1 or more of the following issues: Totalpercentage of messages bounced: 5% Total percentage of bounces acceptedby BULK MAIL SENDER: 95% Total number of HMS member complaints permillion messages: 2451  Please contact us directly via email within thenext 72 hours to advise HMS of BULK MAIL SENDER's intended plan ofaction for addressing these issues. An acceptable plan of action mayplace BULK MAIL SENDER back on our white list. If you do not respond,HMS reserves the right to take all necessary measures to protect theoperations of its email system and prevent further HMS membercomplaints, up to and including suspending BULK MAIL SENDER's ability totransmit email to HMS members.    If BULK MAIL SENDER is receiving thisemail because of high HMS member complaints, please respond to thisemail with an abuse email address where HMS can forward the complaintsfor further action. Thank you for your time, HMS's Postmaster Staff

Concurrent, subsequent, or prior to generating and sending the listremoval report, the compliance monitoring computer 465 removes the bulkmail sender from both the approved bulk mail sender list and the whitelist, thereby resulting in e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender nolonger being awarded preferential treatment (i.e., no longer beingawarded tier one or tier two preferential treatment) (530). In oneimplementation, the monitoring computer 465 may detect egregiousnoncompliance by a bulk mail sender and may automatically turn OFF boththe approved bulk mail sender compliance flag and the white listcompliance flag in the sender compliance data record corresponding tothat bulk mail sender. In some implementations, the bulk mail sender maybe given an opportunity to address egregious noncompliance issues priorto removal from the approved bulk mail sender list and from the whitelist.

If the noncompliance of the approved bulk mail sender is not egregious,then the compliance monitoring computer 465 may assess whether thenoncompliance of the bulk mail sender nevertheless merits removal fromthe approved bulk mail sender list (532). For example, if the first timeinterval is one day and the second time interval is one month, three ormore days of noncompliance in a given month may merit removing the bulkmail sender from the approved bulk mail sender list, despite suchbehavior not rising to the level of egregious noncompliance.

If the noncompliance of the approved bulk mail sender merits removalfrom the approved bulk mail sender list, the compliance monitoringcomputer 465 generates and sends to the approved bulk mail sender anapproved bulk mail sender list removal report (534). The approved bulkmail sender list removal report is a sender compliance report thatinforms the bulk mail sender of the removal of the bulk mail sender fromthe approved bulk mail sender list due to noncompliance. The approvedbulk mail sender list removal report may include a breakdown of senderbehavior data that shows the noncompliance of the bulk mail sender tobulk mail policies. The sender behavior data may include processedcompliance data collected from the complaint data store 457 and the logdata store 462 by the compliance monitoring computer 465. The approvedbulk mail sender list removal report may be sent electronically using,for example, e-mail or manually using, for example, snailmail or atelephone. Table 5 shows an example of an approved bulk mail sender listremoval report.

TABLE 5 Dear BULK MAIL SENDER,    You are receiving this message via ourautomated report generation processes, which audit HMS's Internetinbound mail flow, specifically:  10) the number of bounces a sender'smailings generate   (percent of invalid email addresses per 24 hourperiod),  11) the percentage of bounces we return to the sender that  the sending party's servers can accept,  12) the number of complaintssenders' mailings generate   over the last 24 hours.    You have brokenone or more of the following thresholds during each of three or moredays during the past month and, therefore, are receiving this approvedbulk mail sender list removal report:  10) bounce more than 10% of yourlist  11) take less than 90% of the bounces we wish to send back to you 12) generate more than 100 complaints per million messages   we receivefrom your servers.  HMS is contacting you because the bulk email that isbeing sent from BULK MAIL SENDER is causing problems with our day to dayemail operations. When sending email to HMS, we would advise that BULKMAIL SENDER adhere to our suggested bulk mail policies. BULK MAIL SENDERis being removed from our approved bulk mail sender list due tononcompliance to our bulk mail policies. The bulk e-mail that is beingsent from BULK MAIL SENDER is no longer being awarded the highestpreferential treatment. BULK MAIL SENDER remains on our white list, andthe bulk e-mail that is being sent from bulk mail sender is still beingawarded preferential treatment. Continued noncompliance may remove BULKMAIL SENDER from our white list and eliminate any bulk e-mailpreferential treatment.  BULK MAIL SENDER is being removed from ourapproved bulk mail sender list due to behavior that has repeatedly notcomplied to our bulk mail policies over the past month BULK MAIL SENDERhas significantly risen above current thresholds on 1 or more of thefollowing issues during the following days: Nov. 19, 2002 Totalpercentage of messages bounced: 16% Total percentage of bounces acceptedby BULK MAIL SENDER: 92% Total number of HMS member complaints permillion messages: 85 Nov. 10, 2002 Total percentage of messages bounced:9% Total percentage of bounces accepted by BULK MAIL SENDER: 52% Totalnumber of HMS member complaints per million messages: 32 Nov. 2, 2002Total percentage of messages bounced: 12% Total percentage of bouncesaccepted by BULK MAIL SENDER: 89% Total number of HMS member complaintsper million messages: 120  Please contact us directly via email withinthe next 72 hours to advise HMS of BULK MAIL SENDER's intended plan ofaction for addressing these issues. An acceptable plan of action mayplace BULK MAIL SENDER back on our approved bulk mail sender list. Ifyou do not respond, HMS reserves the right to take all necessarymeasures to protect the operations of its email system and preventfurther HMS member complaints, up to and including suspending BULK MAILSENDER's ability to transmit email to HMS members.    If BULK MAILSENDER is receiving this email because of high HMS member complaints,please respond to this email with an abuse email address where HMS canforward the complaints for further action. Thank you for your time, HMSPostmaster Staff

Concurrent, subsequent, or prior to generating and sending the approvedbulk mail sender list removal report, the compliance monitoring computer465 removes the bulk mail sender from the approved bulk mail senderlist, thereby resulting in e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender nolonger being awarded tier two preferential treatment (536). In oneimplementation, the compliance monitoring computer 465 may automaticallyturn OFF the approved bulk mail sender list compliance flag in thesender compliance data record corresponding to the bulk mail sender upondetection of noncompliance. In some implementations, the bulk mailsender may be given an opportunity to address noncompliance issues priorto removal from the approved bulk mail sender list.

If the noncompliance of the bulk mail sender does not merit removal fromthe approved bulk mail sender list, the compliance monitoring computer465 generates and sends to the bulk mail sender a noncompliance report(538). The noncompliance report may be a sender compliance reportanalogous to that discussed with respect to operation 518. Despite thenoncompliance, the e-mails sent by the bulk mail sender are stillawarded tier two preferential treatment. The behavior of the bulk mailsender continues to be monitored for the next first time interval (i.e.,the process 500 returns to operation 524).

FIG. 7 shows an example of a process 1100 that may be used by the e-mailsystem 400 to preferentially treat an e-mail sent by a bulk mail sendercomplying with bulk mail policies. The process 1100 assumes that twotiers of preferential treatment are available. Specifically, an e-mailsent by a bulk mail sender receives tier one preferential treatment ifthe bulk mail sender is included on a white list. An e-mail sent by abulk mail sender receives tier two preferential treatment if the bulkmail sender is included on an approved bulk mail sender list. Tier onepreferential treatment allows the e-mail to bypass e-mailcontent-related and e-mail sender-related message filtering carried outby both the message identification and filtration system 445 and themailbox system 455. Tier two preferential treatment allows the e-mail tobypass the e-mail content-related and e-mail sender-related messagefiltering, as before, but also displays the e-mail to the user of therecipient system 420 in a preferential manner.

The bulk mail sender system 410 sends an e-mail addressed to one or morerecipients to the message identification and filtration system 445 ofthe host mail system 440 (1102). The message identification andfiltration system 445 receives the email (1104) and determines whetherthe received e-mail was sent by a bulk mail sender on the approved bulkmail sender list (1106). In one implementation, the system 445 maydetermine if the received e-mail was sent by a bulk mail sender includedon the approved bulk mail sender list by extracting the identity (e.g.,sender name, domain name, or IP address) of the bulk mail sender fromthe header information of the received e-mail. The system 445 may thenaccess a sender compliance data record that corresponds to that senderidentity and may examine an approved bulk mail sender compliance flagincluded in the sender compliance data record. If the approved bulk mailsender compliance flag in the sender compliance data record is set toON, then the bulk mail sender is included on the approved bulk mailsender list. If, however, the approved bulk mail sender compliance flagis set to OFF, then the bulk mail sender is not included on the approvedbulk mail sender list.

If the bulk mail sender is included on the approved bulk mail senderlist, the message identification and filtration system 445 turns ON abulk mail flag bit in the header of the e-mail (1108). The e-mail thenis sent directly to the mailbox system 455 (1110).

If the bulk mail sender is not included on the approved bulk mail senderlist, the message identification and filtration system 445 determineswhether the received e-mail was sent by a bulk mail sender included onthe white list (1112). In one implementation, the system 445 maydetermine if the received e-mail was sent by a bulk mail sender includedon the white list by extracting the identity (e.g., sender name, domainname, or IP address) of the bulk mail sender from the header informationof the received e-mail. The system 445 may then access a sendercompliance data record that corresponds to that sender identity and mayexamine a white list compliance flag included in the sender compliancedata record. If the white list compliance flag in the sender compliancedata record is set to ON, then the bulk mail sender is included on thewhite list. If, however, the approved bulk mail sender compliance flagis set to OFF, then the bulk mail sender is not included on the whitelist.

If the bulk mail sender is included on the white list, the e-mail issent directly to the mailbox system 455 (1114). If, however, the bulkmail sender is not included on the white list, the e-mail is not awardedpreferential treatment, and the message identification and filtrationsystem 445 performs various content-related and sender-related filteringoperations on the e-mail, including spam filtering (1116). The result ofthe filtering operations may result in the e-mail being sent to thebounce server (1118), the e-mail being sent to the mailbox system 455(1120), or the e-mail being deleted (1122).

An e-mail sent to the bounce server 450 is received by the bounce server450 (1124) and is sent back to the bulk mail sender system 410 in abounce e-mail that includes the e-mail and an appropriate error message(1126). The bounced e-mail may or may not be successfully received bythe bulk mail sender system 410 (1128).

An e-mail sent to the mailbox system 455 by the message identificationand filtration system 445 is received by the mailbox system 455 (1130)and the mailbox system 455 determines whether the e-mail was sent by abulk mail sender included on either the white list or the approved bulkmail sender list (1132). In one implementation, the mailbox system 455determines whether the e-mail was sent by a bulk mail sender included onthe white list or included on the approved bulk mail sender list byexamining the white list compliance flag and the approved bulk mailsender compliance flag in the sender compliance data recordcorresponding to the bulk mail sender.

If the bulk mail sender is not included on either the white list or theapproved bulk mail sender list, then the mailbox system 455 performsspam filtering operations (1134). The spam filtering operations mayresult in the e-mail being sent to the bounce server (1136), the e-mailbeing deleted (1138), or the e-mail being segmented into constituentsections including a header section (1140). For example, the constituentsections also may include a body section (i.e., the letter or e-mailmessage), an attachment section (i.e., files attached to the e-mail),and an embedded objects section (i.e., graphical objects embedded in thee-mail message). If the bulk mail sender is included on either the whitelist or the approved bulk mail sender list, then no spam filteringoperations are performed and the e-mail is segmented into constituentsections including a header section (1140).

Once segmented, the header section is stored in a list store (not shown)in the mailbox system 455 (1142) corresponding to the mailbox ormailboxes of the e-mail recipient(s). The list store contains headerinformation of received e-mails and may be accessed by the recipientsystem 420 to display, for example, the list 810 in the user interface800. The other sections of the e-mail are stored in one or more datastores in the mailbox system 455 (1144).

The recipient system 420 may access the received e-mail by, for example,initiating a POP or IMAP session with the mailbox system 455. Therecipient system then may retrieve and examine the bulk mail flag bit inthe header of any e-mail received by the recipient to determine whetheror not to preferentially store or display that e-mail. If the flag bitis set to ON, the recipient system 420 may preferentially treat thee-mail by, for example, altering the manner in which the e-mail ispresented to the recipient (e.g., graphically distinguishing the bulke-mails by, for example, including a specialized icon next toinformation related to e-mails) or the manner in which the e-mail isprocessed by the e-mail application of the recipient system 420 (e.g.,bypass some or all of the spam filtering of the e-mail applicationand/or allow the recipient to organize or categorize the bulk e-mails asa separate group).

A number of implementations have been described. Nevertheless, it willbe understood that various modifications may be made. For example, thecontrollers 114 and 124 may include a program, a piece of code, aninstruction, a device, a computer, a computer system, or a combinationthereof, for independently or collectively directing the respectivedevices 112 and 122 to interact and operate as described. Thecontrollers 114 and 124 may be embodied permanently or temporarily inany type of machine, component, physical or virtual equipment, storagemedium, or propagated signal capable of providing instructions to thedevices 112 and 122. The host mail system 440 may provide the describedfunctionality using a different configuration of hardware or softwareworking in concert with one or more other systems, such as, for example,one or more LANs or WANs.

Accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of the followingclaims.

1. A method of handling distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by at least one of a plurality of bulk message senders, the method comprising: providing a set of bulk message policies, wherein the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders has agreed to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders; applying filtering, including white listing based on white list information, to inbound electronic messages, the white listing comprising providing, to the inbound electronic messages, a first level of distinctive treatment that is preferential to regular treatment of electronic messages; receiving a first electronic message sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders; accessing, from a data record, sender compliance information that is additional to the white list information and associated with the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, the sender compliance information being determined by: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages sent prior to receiving the first electronic message; electronically analyzing the electronically aggregated information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages sent prior to receiving the first electronic message; electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies based on the electronic analysis of the electronically aggregated information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages sent prior to receiving the first electronic message, and determining the sender compliance information that is additional to the white list information and associated with the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders based on the determination of whether the bulk message sender is complying with the set of bulk message policies; determining whether to provide a second level of distinctive treatment to the first electronic message based on the accessed sender compliance information that is additional to the white list information and associated with the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, the second level of distinctive treatment being preferential to the first level of distinctive treatment; and providing the second level of distinctive treatment to the first electronic message in response to determining to provide the second level of distinctive treatment to the first electronic message.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information includes electronically aggregating the information without human intervention; electronically analyzing the electronically aggregated information includes electronically analyzing the electronically aggregated information without human intervention; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies based on the electronic analysis of the electronically aggregated information includes electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies without human intervention.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein: providing, to the inbound electronic messages, the first level of distinctive treatment that is preferential to regular treatment of electronic messages includes providing the first level of distinctive treatment to messages received from senders that have maintained at least a first level of compliance with the set of bulk message policies; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies includes electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders has maintained at least a second level of compliance with the set of bulk message policies, the second level of compliance being different from the first level of compliance.
 4. The method of claim 3 further comprising: placing a particular sender on a white list; providing the first level of distinctive treatment to electronic messages received from the particular sender based on the particular sender being placed on the white list; determining whether the particular sender has maintained at least the second level of compliance with the set of bulk message policies over a first time interval; in response to determining that the particular sender has maintained at least the second level of compliance with the set of bulk message policies over the first time interval, placing the particular sender on an approved bulk mail sender list; and providing the second level of distinctive treatment to electronic messages received from the particular sender based on the particular sender being placed on the approved bulk mail sender list.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the bulk message sender, of electronic messages comprises electronically aggregating information associated with a format of electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders; and electronically determining whether the bulk message sender is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the bulk message sender is complying with a set of bulk message policies relating to a format of electronic messages.
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages comprises electronically aggregating information associated with whether the bulk message sender has provided non-Internet contact information in electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies including a requirement that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders provide non-Internet contact information in electronic messages.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages comprises electronically aggregating information associated with whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders has sent electronic messages from a site with a dynamically assigned Internet Protocol address; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies including a requirement that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders not send electronic messages from a site with a dynamically assigned Internet Protocol address.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages comprises electronically tracking information associated with the amount of electronic messages returned to the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders as undeliverable over a predetermined time interval; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies including a requirement that not more than a predetermined amount of electronic messages be returned to the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders as undeliverable over the predetermined time interval.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages comprises electronically tracking information associated with the amount of electronic messages accepted by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders that are returned to the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders as undeliverable over a predetermined time interval; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies including a requirement that the bulk message sender accept more than a predetermined amount of electronic messages that are returned to the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders as undeliverable over the predetermined time interval.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages comprises electronically aggregating information associated with whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders has sent electronic messages using relays open to third party relaying; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the bulk message sender is complying with a set of bulk message policies including a requirement that relays used by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders to send electronic messages be closed to third party relaying.
 11. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages comprises electronically aggregating information associated with whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders has sent electronic messages using relays that hardcode mail exchange records of a mail system configured to receive the electronic messages; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies including a requirement that relays used by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders to send electronic messages not hardcode mail exchange records of the mail system configured to receive the electronic messages.
 12. The method of claim 1 wherein: electronically aggregating information associated with the sending, by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, of electronic messages comprises electronically tracking information associated with whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders has sent electronic messages to an address of a recipient designated as undeliverable due to a permanent delivery failure; and electronically determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with the set of bulk message policies comprises determining whether the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is complying with a set of bulk message policies including a requirement that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders not send future electronic messages to an address of a recipient if an electronic message sent to the address is designated as undeliverable due to a permanent delivery failure.
 13. A method of handling distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by at least one of a plurality of bulk message senders, the method comprising: obtaining an agreement between a messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders agrees to comply with a set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders; storing, in a data record, information indicating that digital communications sent by the bulk message sender receive distinctive treatment based on the bulk message sender complying with the set of bulk message policies; receiving, from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, electronic messages; based on the agreement that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders agrees to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, handling the electronic messages received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders distinctively from electronic messages received from other senders that have not agreed to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages; monitoring whether the electronic messages that have been received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders and that have been handled distinctively comply with the set of bulk message policies; determining whether to continue handling electronic messages received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders distinctively from electronic messages received from other senders that have not agreed to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages based on the monitoring of whether the electronic messages that have been received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders and that have been handled distinctively comply with the set of bulk message policies; and updating the information stored in the data record based on the determination of whether to continue handling electronic messages from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders distinctively from electronic messages received from other senders that have not agreed to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages.
 14. The method of claim 13 wherein obtaining the agreement between the messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders agrees to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders includes obtaining the agreement between the messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders by one or more system operators of an electronic mail system.
 15. The method of claim 13 wherein obtaining the agreement between the messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders agrees to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders includes manually obtaining the agreement between the messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders.
 16. The method of claim 13 wherein obtaining the agreement between the messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders agrees to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders includes electronically obtaining the agreement between the messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders.
 17. The method of claim 13 wherein obtaining the agreement between the messaging service provider and the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders agrees to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by the bulk message sender includes: presenting a display of the set of bulk message policies to the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders; and receiving, from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, an indication that the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders agrees to comply with the set of bulk message policies.
 18. The method of claim 13 further comprising: performing initial technical compliance tests to verify whether a message sending system used by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is secure and technically able to comply with the set of bulk mail policies, wherein handling the electronic messages received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders distinctively from electronic messages received from other senders that have not agreed to comply with the set of bulk message policies in exchange for distinctive treatment of electronic messages is conditioned on results of the initial technical compliance tests revealing that the message sending system used by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders is secure and technically able to comply with the set of bulk mail policies.
 19. A method of handling distinctive treatment of electronic messages sent by at least one of a plurality of bulk message senders, the method comprising: providing sender compliance information associated with the at least one bulk message sender indicating that the bulk message sender has agreed to comply with a set of bulk message policies and has been complying with said set of bulk message policies; receiving, from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders, electronic messages; determining to handle the electronic messages received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders distinctively from electronic messages received from other senders based on the sender compliance information associated with the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders; based on a determination to handle the electronic messages received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders distinctively from electronic messages received from other senders, handling the electronic messages received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders distinctively from electronic messages received from other senders; monitoring whether the electronic messages that have been received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders and that have been handled distinctively comply with the set of bulk message policies; based on the monitoring, determining that the electronic messages that have been received from the bulk message sender and that have been handled distinctively comply with the set of bulk message policies; and in response to a determination that the electronic messages that have been received from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders and that have been handled distinctively do not comply with the set of bulk message policies: generating a noncompliance report that informs the bulk message sender of the noncompliance with the set of bulk message policies; sending the noncompliance report to the bulk message sender; and updating the compliance information associated with the at least one bulk message sender.
 20. The method of claim 19 wherein generating the noncompliance report that informs the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders of the noncompliance with the set of bulk message policies comprises generating a noncompliance report that includes a list of the bulk message policies that are currently being violated by the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders and that requests a corrective action plan from the at least one of the plurality of bulk message senders. 